Aleph One 1.3a1: testers wanted

Sep 8th '15, 04:11

Who wants to be a guinea pig? Try the alpha, tell me what's broken.

Is my computer gonna explode?

There's always that chance. If all goes well, you shouldn't notice much difference from 1.2.1, but here's what to specifically look for:

MML and preferences bugs - all XML parsing was completely replaced. The new code is much easier to read and debug, but I did have to write new code for every single MML setting and preference. Aleph One has a lot of those.

Brightness setting in Shader - when using the Shader renderer, the original method of adjusting the screen brightness (which never worked well in windowed mode, is deprecated by every modern OS, and flat-out crashes on newer Macs) is replaced with a new approach. This will eventually be used for all OpenGL drawing, including Classic. If you use OpenGL (Classic), please try Shader in this alpha.

Is there anything new?

This is an experiment in crowd-sourced testing. Only download the alpha if you can provide feedback and help find problems. If you're looking for new features, sit tight and wait for the final release this winter.

C'mon, there has to be something good in here.

Okay, there are a few things:

Some minor bugs were fixed, including the music-order bug in Phoenix and Eternal, and one of the errors Crater Creator triggered in software mode.
Infinity includes Goran's most recent Lava plugin.
Marathon includes a higher-res starscape.
The "Brightness" setting is restored for OS X users, if you use Shader.
Aleph One tries harder to recover when the main window fails to start properly.
Aleph One's home page and update-check URLs were changed to no longer point to SourceForge.

So I broke it, what now?

Report bugs in this thread. If it's graphics related, include your OS version number, and your video card or Mac model. Also check the standard advice on reporting bugs.

Note to Mac users: 10.7 or later is required. If you're on an older Mac, stick with 1.2.1.

Sep 8th '15, 13:21

Thanks Hopper! So far it seems to work as advertised. I'm on OSX 10.10. I'll let you know if anything breaks

Sep 8th '15, 23:28

I will run through Eternal with this and see if fixed things are fixed and if I find anything else broken anew. Thanks!

Sep 9th '15, 22:27

Notes thus far:

Can confirm that the music bug is fixed.

Noticed an odd graphical glitch on levels that begin with nothing but landscape in view (e.g. Deja Vu All Over Again, Sakhmet Rising, S'pht'ia) but not in all landscape initially in view so long as it's accompanied by some geometry (e.g. To Sleep Perchance To Dream, The Tangent Universe). It looks like what I would guess is drawing the contents of some kind of buffer, as it's variable graphical nonsense that on at least one occasion appeared to be made of distorted pieces of other textures. (It changes even retrying it on the same level). It appears for varying amounts of time, sometimes only a brief flash but once for nearly a second.

This is on a Early 2011 13" MBP with Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB running on 10.7.5 in Shader mode.

ETA: I also had an unexplained crash to desktop a few seconds into "Roots and Radicals", but there was nothing in the Aleph One log, and I forgot to click for the OSX crash report, and then I couldn't reproduce it. Could've just been a fluke. (ETA: Or might it possibly be related to the changed terminal behavior I just started a new thread about? The crash wasn't when loading the terminal, but maybe the existence of a terminal with no #UNFINISHED section causes some kind of sporadic problem? Seems a stretch…)

Sep 10th '15, 06:39

Yeah, graphical glitches tend to happen when the player's head is outside the level. In Deja Vu, for instance, the player's feet start 2.7 WU above the ceiling, which means you get a view full of void for the first 3.3 WU of your fall. The engine does not adjust the player to a valid position inside the polygon, even though it arguably should.

It's more noticeable in the alpha because Shader smears the void like the software renderer, instead of starting from black every frame. (The behavior of the void is not guaranteed, and map makers are still advised to avoid it.)

Sep 11th '15, 02:51

Pfhorrest wrote:I forgot to click for the OSX crash report

I've done the same thing. On my machine at least, even if I don't click through, recent reports are still listed in Console under "User Diagnostic Reports".

Sep 11th '15, 06:05

Ah, good to know! Here is the crash report, spoilered:

Spoiler:

I also finished playing through Ch1 in its entirety and the last two levels through the endscreen back to the main menu and found no other bugs. Looks solid to me! Thanks again for all your hard work Hopper. :-)

Jan 10th '16, 04:21

Please tell me PowerPC will be supported in the final release! This is one of the only games that runs on our systems!!

Jan 10th '16, 06:51

Hopper said it requires 10.7, so it sounds doubtful.

Jan 10th '16, 07:33

3371-Alpha wrote:Please tell me PowerPC will be supported in the final release! This is one of the only games that runs on our systems!!

Please get a new computer.

Jan 10th '16, 17:09

Wrkncacnter wrote:
3371-Alpha wrote:Please tell me PowerPC will be supported in the final release! This is one of the only games that runs on our systems!!

Please get a new computer.

I think these "please get a new computer" comments are a little obnoxious. Obviously if someone has the money to get a modern computer they'll get a new computer. Otherwise what's the point of saying that, even as a joke?

@Alpha, on my old Mac I use the Classic emulator to run Forge, and an older version of Aleph One that runs on OS 10.4.1. Is something along those lines an option for you?

Jan 10th '16, 18:10

I'm on Leopard so the classic environment isn't an option for me and SheepShaver (ironically) runs like such shit on PPC machines so I'm not sure where that leaves me. I might be able to compile a new version since I have Xcode and GCC installed but I'm more of an amateur at that. I'm more experience with HTML than anything else.

Jan 11th '16, 20:59

There has to be a way we can back-port this to older platforms. Tobias did it to Safari with Leopard Webkit and ClassicHasClass did it to FireFox with TenFourFox. There must be a way.

Jan 12th '16, 01:28

my risc style determines my post style wrote:there has to be a way

there must be a way

tertortron wrote:whats the point of saying that

even as a joke

Jan 12th '16, 02:59

What the hell is a tertor?

And don't say "just look in the mirror".

Jan 12th '16, 03:05

philtron wrote:What the hell is a tertor?

And don't say "just look in the mirror".

Tertor is the real deal.

Jan 12th '16, 04:29

I smell another Mac vs PC argument rising.

Jan 12th '16, 14:38

3371-Alpha wrote:I might be able to compile a new version since I have Xcode and GCC installed but I'm more of an amateur at that.

You won't. The new SDL uses APIs that simply aren't available in ancient versions of OS X. But there is good news: Aleph One 1.2.1 will let you play the original games on your PowerMac as long as the hardware keeps working.

Jan 12th '16, 18:04

What type of APIs? Could they be back ported too (yes I'm nuts)?

Jan 13th '16, 00:46

3371-Alpha wrote:What type of APIs? Could they be back ported too (yes I'm nuts)?

Actually, someone on the SDL forums does have a version of SDL2 that'll apparently work on a PowerPC system running OSX.

Jan 13th '16, 01:37

I knew it was possible! Just needs a bit of tinkering & determination.

Jan 16th '16, 02:27

So Hopper, do you think you can find it in your heart to reimplement legacy OS X support by the time of the final release? Like I said before, I'm not that experienced building from source and you could do a far better job than I can.

Oh yes, a special thanks to you AlumiuN for helping to prove my point that back porting is still a possibility.

Jan 16th '16, 03:05

loke 4:23 wrote:physician, heal thy 's/self/architectural inadquacy/'

Jan 16th '16, 04:06

3371-Alpha wrote:Oh yes, a special thanks to you AlumiuN for helping to prove my point that back porting is still a possibility.

Don't implicate me in this, I merely said that it was possible; I still think that it's not the developer's responsibility to ensure that programs work on antiquated systems. If you want it to run on PowerPC, it should be up to you to build it yourself.

Jan 16th '16, 05:25

No no no, I didn't mean to implicate you, I just wanted to thank you for helping to prove my point. You're the one who helped me find a source to prove to everyone it was still possible. I probably should have posted that in my last post though.

Aleph One 1.3a1: testers wanted

Aleph One 1.3a1: testers wanted

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